


Missed Connection

by Hekate1308



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 21:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20516966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: When Crowley told him he was with an old friend, Aziraphale decided to check up on him. He could never have imagined what he'd find.





	Missed Connection

**Author's Note:**

> Short and painful, my pretties. Enjoy!

Aziraphale put the phone down and wrung his hands. Crowley? An old friend? At this time of all times?

Something was wrong.

And so, he decided to go to the demon’s place. Weirdly enough, he’d never been there, although Crowley tended to show up at his bookstore regularly. Maybe that was the reason – he’d always taken for granted that he’d just drop by if something was happening – or nothing was happening and he just wanted to talk about their arrangement, or the weather, or complain about his bosses…

The point was, Aziraphale entered Crowley’s apartment building for the first time that evening. As he knocked on his door, he called out his chosen name; but there was no answer.

So, thinking it was probably how Crowley usually entered, he waved a hand and miracled the door open. “Crowley?”

Again, no answer.

He couldn’t quite say why he was surprised at the lack of furniture; probably because Crowley had always seemed quite content in his shop, and Aziraphale was well aware that he himself was what the humans called a hoarder.

Still, there was something so… cold about the whole place, quite unlike how he had always perceived the demon.

Who didn’t seem to be at home, but he’d just called him from there… “Crowley?”

As he walked across the flat, slowly making himself familiar with it, he happened across his plants. Crowley had talked about them from time to time, had nurturing them made sound like no6thing but a hobby, something to do between his evil deeds when he was bored; but this…

“Oh, look at you!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful tone of green outside of the rainforest!”

The plants actually seemed to be listening; some of them straightened their leaves and looked, for lack of a better word, proud; while others appeared to be… surprised?

“Such a pretty plant, yes you are” he automatically said to the one next to him, stroking its leaves, “he must be taking such a good care of you… now where is he?”

He moved on, never realizing that at the very mention of Crowley, the plants stiffened.

“Crowley?” he called out yet again. He was slowly growing worried. Certainly he wouldn’t just go off with that old friend of his, would he? Not when he’d been quite insistent that they should leave for space just a short time ago…

Aziraphale repressed something that might almost have been jealousy, if he’d been human. But he was an angel; he didn’t _get_ jealous.

But still – where was he?

“Crowley! This is frightfully important! I have found the antichrist, and he is –“

He stopped talking abruptly after he’d pushed open the next door.

Aziraphale slowly stepped into the room as he took it all in.

There. That was the tartan thermos he’d given Crowley back in the sixties on the table, wasn’t it? The one with holy water, his insurance policy. But why would it be –

And then his eyes fell on the ground. There was a bucket lying there, an old, battered bucket, quite unlike anything he would have imagined Crowley to own; and next to it –

No. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be for the simple reason that it was impossible for him to –

Aziraphale sank on his knees as he remembered the words he’d spoken upon refusing to give Crowley the holy water back in the 1860s.

_I am not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley. _

And there was a melted demon on the floor. And no sign of Crowley.

And he’d been so _desperate_, hadn’t he, when he’d asked him to go to Alpha Centauri –

No. No. Crowley wouldn’t. Crowley _couldn’t_.

Crowley couldn’t just leave him here all alone for the end of the world –

But that was what he had done to Crowley, hadn’t he? He’d told him not once, but twice that they were on different sides, that he didn’t even consider him a friend, that he’d never go with him –

And Crowley –

Crowley.

Aziraphale remembered, with startling clarity; he remembered Mesopotamia and Rome and Paris; and perhaps, most importantly, he remembered London, a bombed-out church, a proud (although trying to hide that fact) demon handing him a bag of books, and the feeling that had swelled in his chest then before he had promptly pushed it back down –

If only he hadn’t. If only he had told Crowley that night; he wouldn’t have been rejected, he knew that now after his pleas to run away together, they would have had each other, they would have had each other these last seventy years, and Crowley would never have felt the need to – to –

And old friend. He hadn’t meant somebody else. He had meant –

Unconsciously, Aziraphale had gotten up from the floor and walked, as in if a trance, towards the table. He reached out and grabbed the thermos, almost hard enough for it to break.

He’d known. He’d known this was a suicide pill – he had told Crowley – and yet years later he had given him the holy water because he’d rather have that then the demon risking his life to get it –

This was his fault. He shouldn’t have given him the holy water, he should have dissuaded him from wishing for it altogether. If he had, Crowley would still be alive, and they would be able to do something, anything about the son of Satan –

Aziraphale still didn’t know what they would have done, but they would have come up with something. Crowley had always been good at coming up with plans at the last minute.

And now he wouldn’t, never again. Because Aziraphale had handed him the means to end his life, because he had been bored and lonely and desperate to make amends, and Crowley had went ahead and used them, and he was gone. _Gone forever_.

Something in him still didn’t quite believe it. Crowley couldn’t be gone. Because if Crowley was gone, that meant that Aziraphale was all alone in the world, and Crowley wouldn’t let that happen.

Only Aziraphale had more or less told him that he didn’t want anything to do with him.

He could see it now, could see it as if he had been there, Crowley slowly pouring the holy water into the bucket, placing it on the door, then walking through it –

What a horrible way to die, too. Melting away until there was nothing left.

Nothing.

That was what Aziraphale had now, too.

Nothing.

At least, he found himself thinking numbly, he wouldn’t have to carry this burden for long. The End was nigh.

For the first time, Aziraphale found himself looking forward to it.

Because a world without Crowley was not one he wanted to be a part of.

And, suddenly, the numbness dispersed and hot, white pain flared through his very Grace, all but ripping him apart. “_Why_” he called out into the sky, “Why did you let him do it? He wasn’t evil – he was just a little – demonic. And it was you who cast him down to begin with!”

He had never been truly angry at the Almighty before – he’d been awed, and sometimes scared when he thought of the sword, but he’d never really raged at her as he did now. “He was trying to do the right thing! And whenever I asked, he was ready to perform a few miracles or blessings for me – you see, he wasn’t wholly lost! _And you just allowed him to –_“

He hadn’t realized he’d started to cry until now, when a few drops fell down his cheeks.

He couldn’t imagine ever crying before, not even when he’d accidentally ripped a page in a book a few years ago.

That had been fine, though. Crowley had dropped by, seen his face and miracle it away. Like the stain on his coat.

The phone started to ring. That was odd – he didn’t think anyone but him had Crowley’s number.

_He would never call him again, though. _

And then –

Crowley jumped out if the phone. At least, that was all that Aziraphale could see through his tears; later, there would be time for a more in-depth explanation.

Later because there would be a later because Crowley was here and alive and well.

In fact, he was grinning as he turned off the answering machine, from which a series of curses was emitting. “Hah. Now you can –“ He turned around and saw Aziraphale. “Angel?”

Then he saw the state he was in. “Aziraphale? What happened? Was it Heaven? Have the winged bastards figured it out too –“

“Crowley” he breathed and then, in his haste, he was the one to shove Crowley against a wall, pressing as close as he could.

“Angel?”

“I – I wanted to talk to you, come see you, and instead – the bucket and the thermos and you weren’t there and there’s a melted demon on the floor and –“

“That’s Ligur” he interrupted him before realizing. “Oh, you thought…”

“Yes” he mumbled, “thought I’d lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me” for some reason, Crowley’s hands had settled on his hips, “I’m right here. And Hastur’s locked in the answering machine.”

Aziraphale chuckled even though his cheeks were still wet. “Sounds like something you’d do.”

“Damn right” he smirked. “Why did you want to come see me?”

“Later” Aziraphale decided.

“Angel, the world’s about to end, we don’t have –“

Aziraphale drew him into a kiss and was delighted to find that, despite his objections, they did in fact have time enough for this.


End file.
